When “Bouba” equals “Kiki”: Cultural commonalities and cultural differences in sound-shape correspondences

When “Bouba” equals “Kiki”: Cultural commonalities and cultural differences in sound-shape correspondences

It has been suggested that the Bouba/Kiki effect, in which meaningless speech sounds are systematically mapped onto rounded or angular shapes, reflects a universal crossmodal correspondence between audition and vision. Here, radial frequency (RF) patterns were adapted in order to compare the Bouba/Kiki effect in Eastern and Western participants demonstrating different perceptual styles. Three a...

Sound to Meaning Mappings in the Bouba-Kiki Effect

Sound to meaning correspondences in spoken language are assumed to be largely arbitrary. However, research has identified a number of exceptions to the arbitrariness assumption. In particular, non-arbitrary mappings between sound and shape, the bouba/kiki effect, have been documented across diverse languages and both children and adults are sensitive to this type of sound symbolic mapping. The ...

"Bouba" and "Kiki" in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape-sound matches, but different shape-taste matches to Westerners.

Western participants consistently match certain shapes with particular speech sounds, tastes, and flavours. Here we demonstrate that the "Bouba-Kiki effect", a well-known shape-sound symbolism effect commonly observed in Western participants, is also observable in the Himba of Northern Namibia, a remote population with little exposure to Western cultural and environmental influences, and who do...

Cultural Differences and Considerations When Initiating Insulin

Looking for the bouba-kiki effect in prelexical infants

Adults and toddlers systematically associate certain pseudowords, such as „bouba‟ and „kiki‟, with round and spiky shapes, respectively. The ontological origin of this so-called bouba-kiki effect is unknown: it could be an unlearned aspect of perception, appear with language exposure, or only emerge with the ability to produce speech sounds (i.e., babbling). We report the results of three exper...